Finding one's passion, and the nature of relationships

Shucks! I remember so little of what I heard last night from Wan. Ok, I should go review our extant Skype conversation. And it was very little. Soon after we started the conversation on Skype, she had to go offline – the downside of living in the 佛教學係dorms. So I called her…and so those words went unrecorded. Slowly, though, they come back to me.

One very important point – I repeated this to my 何老師today – concerns the right to give up. I was asking Wan, initially only half-interested in the answer, as to how one can find one’s direction in life. The answer in brief is to find what one enjoys doing BUT there’s a qualifier – one must fully try something before one has the RIGHT TO DECIDE. To Wan this means, once one decides to attempt something, there should be some concrete and measureable goal to achieve, as a waypoint of sorts. And, to her, despite all the possible pains and tribulations one might have to go through in pursuit of that goal, one cannot give up. To bear the difficulties is a requisite to deciding whether something works for one. The way to decide? Amidst the difficulties and tribulations, one deeply enjoys the activity, and derives satisfaction from it. So she felt my desire to learn translation by setting my eyes upon the completion of a book is a good start, for there is a visible end.

I never quite thought of things this way. As in, I’ve thought about the “right” to give up, but never thought about the need to immerse oneself in an activity to a certain extent decided upon beforehand to qualify to have that “right”. But it seems to make sense. I mean…I have for these many years not tried hard to achieve anything. Like I said, I ask very little of life. No…I ask for much but I do nothing to make sure I deserve it. Commitment to a cause is necessary payment to receive, even though such receiving continues to be a miraculous one, and not, in big part, caused by one’s efforts. So for the first time in my life, yesterday I called up the Gwyneth, organizer of the current round of BIA, and told her I wanted to 「爭取」the opportunity to join the team on the trip - on the grounds that the team could benefit from my suggestions and that I could rethink and re-understand what I learnt during BIA2009. Anyway, an update to that, I can go with them but I need to finance my involvement on my own.

Wan also shared this with me: for two to depend「依靠」on each other, they must firstbe firmly established on their own. Their lives must, individually, have strong foundations. Otherwise, any sort of dependence will only cause both to stumble and falter. In a very deep sense, a relationship is always about oneself. So to love “others” one must first love oneself. To project one’s dependence on others, one must first be able to rely on oneself. It’s counterintuitive, but deep in my guts, that makes so much sense. To not give others what one does not first desire, is, in this sense, really about treating yourself right.

Anyway, the thing that is left to do now is to determine how I should spend my two months in Taiwan, in December 2011 and January 2012. And after I decide, I should stand by it, and complete whatever it is that I want to do.

Venerable Bodhi, on giving up

So I really didn’t resolve the issue behind my lack of willingness and motivation in getting my degree. A simple Bachelors, with three not-quite-tough modules to go, and, there I was, for the past few days (minus last night) doing NOTHING to pass my modules. I got round to talking to Venerable Bodhi and Wan about this, and reaped lots. I don’t dare say the “insights” has gone from the rational to emotive level but it sure seems I am gathering more reasons to put effort into completing these darn courses.

I’m gonna split it into two posts. The first about what I learnt from Venerable and the second, from Ah Wan.

Venerable Bodhi has always been the most sympathetic and I have never seen her get so serious. Ok, I have seen it, just once when she dealt with a student who gets a little too touchy with the opposite gender. And that was a big deal given that he and his peers are in that age of puberty. Anyway, What I got from Venerable is that I have to have a standard, a code, a way to tell me where I am heading. Without a roadmap, Venerable fiercely (to me) pointed out, I would always be lost and dissatisfied with life and whatever I am doing. That’s because I would go hopping from one tentative aim to another, always finding some reason to be unhappy about it, and always giving up. Having given up, I would feel, yet again, there is no meaning in what I am doing and the cycle continues.

And regarding this “giving up”. I simply give up too much! Or rather, that has been the only choice I ever made, between “holding on” and “giving up”. How many darn times?? Initial sparks of passion drives me to decent heights, for a beginner, that is, and then I just stop! I stop doing what consumed me and my energy for the last couple of months. I’ve attributed it to a lack of praise (which is so readily available for a rookie who outperforms people’s expectations), and I considered if it is the difficulties; Dr Don thinks, once I see myself easily succeeding at something, I lose interest; but truth is I really have no idea. I was on to something last night. I think it is about meaning, and relevance to my life. I don’t typically get on to something by thinking about its “far-reaching” significance…I simply enjoy it. Being recognized, and accomplishing some measure of success gives me a high. But, now laid bare before me, I can never finish doing something, anything, just by going on a high.

I don’t try for anything. A Chinese expression describes me well: 「苟且偷生」- to ask little of life, and thus, implicitly live on borrowed time. It means taking the safe path, to not rock the boat, to do as everyone does, keeping ones head down. Of course, many of those phrases hardly describe me…but I do ask very little of life. I take what is given, and, now and then, try to cheat a little more out of the system (society, parents, friends etc), but I never asked in life for anything big. How ironic! And I desire meaning; easily the biggest thing that can be found anything in the universe and the whole of life.

The fear of success, and the bachelor's degree I nearly gave up

The past few days hasn't been easy. Been quite a ride. I've been having a headache that doesn't seem to go away - a constant pressure around the crown of my head which increases with how tired I am. I was telling my doc, Victor Loh, at the University's clinic that I think it is a physical manifestation of mental worries/pressure.

I haven't been very happy. The issue of hoping the my girlfriend who give me more time and attention cropped up again. And she's been real busy. So busy that she had to choose between rest, and giving me attention. And sure I was not pleased to hear that. On one level, that is to say I am not very important to her. On top of that, she tells me she hopes to that she could sometimes also be at the receiving end of some attention and comforting when she's facing stress (and not some needy boyfriend), i.e., I am currently not "grown-up" enough for her to depend on.

And all these made me question my approach to life. I wanted to tell her about my desire to not finish my bachelor's, because I am starting to think that it really is a waste of time. And truth is, having wasted 3 semesters, I really don't want to be wasting another possible two months, which is all it takes to complete the course. Of course, it might sound really silly to give up at this point, but I used Steve Jobs to encourage myself on this matter - would you be willing to do what you are gonna do today if it were your last day on earth? Hell, no!

But thankfully, I have enough friends who did the great favour of offering me listening ears and thinking minds, of a different perspective. My teachers and mentors are my friends too, btw. And they all noticed one thing - I am resistant to the idea of graduating, and there must be some underlying reason. I gained from listening to their insights - fear of success, grief over the lost of something deep within me, (de)valuing academic qualifications as a proxy to attaing/not losing something else.

And this morning, for no good reason, it all made sense. I don't like the idea of getting a bachelor's because I think it is a corruption of my "innocence". You see, I believe that life should be lived simply - as close as possible to the basis of life. I am afraid that getting my degree would somehow cause me to lose sight of that. I don't want my deeper purpose to be corrupted. I think a degree adds nothing to life, especially when I have learnt all, I believe, that I want to and can learn from my course of study. I am preparing to go back to basics - farming is on this path. And yet, a degree?

But the Diamond Sutra offered a different perspective. The Buddha asked Ananda if the persons who attained any of the four (stage of) realisations (which culminates in Arahantship) can have thoughts in his mind, that he has attained some realisation. And Ananda replied in the negative. Why? Because if the realised being has such a thought, then he has attachment to a self, which is to say he has not any realisation. At a deeper level, there are no realisations to speak of, they are just skilful means that the Buddha "invented" to help us get there. (even the term "get there" is problematic, since there is nothing and nowhere to get (to))

But I can't but notice that, to the average, commonsensical, worldly mind, there really exists the four attainments. And so the four attainments are real but yet not so real, all at the same time, and it matters as to how you see it. So I figured out that, the degree is not real, there really is no such thing as a degree. Just like in math, we can confuse a process "4 + 3" with an iteration, which appears as an self-existent static object, "7", so we can wrongly believe that a degree is a "static" "achievement" when it is really the "outcome" of a process of learning. And what it takes for me to accept getting a degree is to realise that there is no such thing as a degree and that I, being aware of that, cannot define myself by that paper qualification. Thus, I can't be corrupted because I got hold of some paper or supposedly "completed," successfully, a process.

And here's what I think of getting a degree now - it is a gift. I really don't believe I need the degree. But certainly to the worldly mind the degree is real, and so should be obtained. So, in order to satisfy the minds that think the degree is real (and necessary), I shall get the degree. I think, in that sense, it is a gift, my gift to those around me.

And my gift to all my friends who understand this post? Well, nothing more than this post itself.